Exiled Moscow chief rabbi: Kremlin using resources to repress critics rather than protect vulnerable groups

Moscow’s exiled former chief rabbi accuses the authorities of leaving Jews and other citizens vulnerable to attacks like yesterday’s gun rampages by turning the state’s security apparatus on Kremlin critics instead of terrorist threats.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt’s comments come after gunmen killed 19 people in the mainly Muslim region of Dagestan in southern Russia in attacks on churches, synagogues and law enforcement.

“The Russian authorities during the last years have used the law enforcement authorities to repress any kind of opposition to the Kremlin, opposition to the war and any movements like the LGBT movement which was declared as extremist. People are sent to prison for criticizing the war,” Goldschmidt says in a video interview from Berlin.

“So instead of using law enforcement and the interior ministry and FSB (Russia’s security service) to provide security for Russian citizens, it’s being used to eradicate any opposition to the regime. And here we see the results, that such terrorists like ISIS are able to again and again mount successful attacks against houses of worship, against cultural events.”

Investigators have yet to establish who was behind Sunday’s attack but ISIS, or Islamic State, has an established presence in Russia’s North Caucasus region, which includes Dagestan.

In addition, coordinated strikes by gunmen who are prepared to die while conducting marauding attacks are a hallmark of the Islamist militant group, which claimed responsibility for a massacre of 145 people attending a concert near Moscow in March.